


Sheep in Wolves' Clothing

by Attorney C (arh581958)



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Donna's cool here, Harvard Graduate!Mike, Harvey falls in-love, M/M, Mike's kind of a wimp, Mike's wearing panties, Oblivious!Mike, Office pranks gone wrong, Panty Kink, Pilot Episode, Pre-Slash, Season 1, Shy!Mike, Slow Build, Successful!Mike, Tumblr, in two weeks, kind of, lawyer!Mike, pining!Harvey, pre-Marvey, prompt, request fic, until he's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 16:23:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6383785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arh581958/pseuds/Attorney%20C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harvey Specter had only one job--to find another 'him' to hire as a junior associate--after he gets promoted to Senior Partner. In comes Harvard Graduate Mike Ross, who's shy and awkward and tongue-tied. Needless to say, the kid isn't what he expect but neither did Harvey expect to fall in-love.</p><p>(Or: When everything goes downhill, it's time to go back to the beginning. I'll bring you back to the pilot episode in season 1.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sheep in Wolves' Clothing

**Author's Note:**

> This was prompted so long ago and I've only had the inspiration to write it now. After the Season 6 Finale ends with Mike behind bars, the question of 'what if' arises. What if Mike was a real lawyer? Prompter Xehra wanted a shy!Mike in an office where Harvey doesn't immediately consider him a match. That's what I decided to do. Mike's bumbling and shy in the first part. He's also a bit of a wuss. He gets better though. 
> 
> I didn't expect this to be this long but, yeah, me and long fics are the way to go. I struggle with short ones. I included sassy!Donna because she's the bestest platonic bestfriend to any gay man. So Donna fans, this is for you! The fic basically covers most of the pilot episode with tidbits until episode 4 snuck in. 
> 
> To Xehra, thank you for trusting me with the prompt! I hope you like it!

The late afternoon light shines through the glass-paneled corner office on the 52nd floor of the Pearson Hardman. Inside, the man of the hour Harvey Specter sits, scowling at the person on the phone. He rubs his fingers over his brows and nurses his congratulatory two-fingers of scotch.

 “Yes, yes, I know, Jessica, I’ll find one.” He says over the receiver before tipping the tumbler to take a sip. He disconnects the phone with an audible sigh.

Beside him, the intercom buzzes to life, “That doesn’t sound like your ‘happy voce’, Harvey.” His assistant’s voice crackles with a hint of static. The silent question in her voice does not need to be said. Harvey drifts from the box to the red-haired woman sitting in a cubicle outside his door.

“Donna,” a small smile curves on his lips. From his office, he sees her perk up then swivel in his direction. Her lips twitch.

She brushes her finger over the comm, “Harvey…”, the eye-roll nearly audible in her voice. “You’re going to make me do something, aren’t you? What is it?”

Harvey stands up with a mischievous expression on his handsome face. “ _You’re_ going to find me another _me_ ,” he tells his secretary as he exits his office.

Donna looks up abruptly. She arches one of her elegantly shaped eyebrows, glaring at man peering over her cubicle divider. “Say what now? For a minutes there I thought you said that as if it’s my _job_.”

“It is now.” He grins his million-dollar-grin, the one that makes women drop their panties in the middle of a crowded bar to tuck into his breast pocket or make Michael _fucking_ Jackson sign the retainer form. He wields it like a weapon.

Unfortunately for him, long periods of exposure to said smile makes a girl immune to it. Donna simply frowns. “Harvey,” she exasperates, “I’ve already booked a conference room in the Chilton.”

“Book yourself a room and a spa treatment,” he replies, pulling out his corporate black card from his wallet before winking at her. “Send him to my office Monday morning, 8am. _Before_ I have to parade him in front of Jessica, or Louis. Thanks, Donna.”

“What makes you sure I’m getting a man!” She hollers at his retreating back. “I could get a woman with big tits and no brain!”

Harvey’s voice is muffled by the closing elevator. “Make her blonde with pretty legs!”

With a sigh, Donna tucks the card into her pink Dolce and Gabbana wallet and gets to work. First this is first; if Harvey’s paying, she might as well book a suit for her troubles.

 

***

 

Harvey spends the weekend wrapped around a beautiful busty brunette, whom he met at the fancy rooftop bar where he went to celebrate his promotion to name partner for Pearson Specter. Captivated by the long shapely legs around his waist, the warm breath against his ear, the floral sweetness in his nostrils, and the dripping wet heat around his dick, he completely forgets Donna’s assignment.

 

***

 

Monday comes, and Harvey arrives in his office to find a kid sitting on his leather couch. He glances at the wall clock and reads: 9am, and five minutes. He is not unfamiliar with strangers in his office. Normally, he has Donna screening them, and a glance at the corner of his eye confirms that his assistant’s cubicle is empty.

The ill-fitting suit tells Harvey that the kid isn’t a client. He abruptly stands, ducking his head as he introduces himself. “M—Mike, Mike Ross.” He lowers his head shyly but extends his hand. The nervousness comes off him in waves, annoying the hell out of Harvey.

“Who the hell are you?” The Senior Partner plops onto his desk chair, and glares. “What makes you think you can stay in my office? Where the hell is Donna? She’s not supposed to let anyone in my office before I come in.”

“Your—your se—secretary went to—to the restroom. She t—told me t—to wait—t here.” Mike awkwardly pulls back his hand, shifting side-to-side on the balls of his feet and biting his lip, looking every inch unsure of what he should do. “I—I’m—uh—your new as—associate.”

Harvey looks over the kid again, and visibly catalogs the younger man’s appearance. Everything about Mike is so awkward that Harvey almost feels physically afflicted by him; the bush-cut sandy brown hair is wind-blown and messy like he made an ill-attempt to tame it with his fingers, there’s windburn on the bridge of his nose and his cheeks, and a patch of stubble on his jaw that he missed when shaved.

Do not get Harvey to start on the clothes, especially that abhorrent mustard skinny tie. He wrinkles his face in disgust, “You’re what now?”

Mike blushes under the scrutiny. He huffs out his cheeks and blurts out, “Your new—uhm—ass—associate, Mr. S—Specter, s—sir!”

Harvey’s chair creaks when he shifts his weight back to throw his head and laugh, tears nearly brimming his eyes. The jubilant attitude is gone when he comes back, glowering at Mike. “Where are the cameras?” He asks with utmost seriousness, eyes darting across the corners of his office, expecting to see a hidden glint of red. “Because clearly this had to be a joke.”

“I—I’m not lying!” That stops Harvey’s laughter, surprised that such a small body could produce a sound of that decibel. Mike’s staring at him, red-faced and flushed with anger. “I’m your new associate!”

Piqued, Harvey presses his forearms on the desk for leverage when he leans. “No, you’re not.” He tells Mike smugly, “Because _we_ —” He proudly points to the embossed silver name-card on his desk, “—at Pearson Hardman only hire from Harvard. And you—” he flicks a finger to the kid, “Look like you’ve still got your mother’s milk on your non-existent mustache. So you get your ass out of my office, capiche?”

Something flickers in Mike’s eyes for a moment before he, unexpectedly, snorts. “The godfather, really? Or do you just speak Italian?” He sighs, running his hands through his bird’s nest of a disaster. He catches Harvey’s eye again noticeably stiffens, and the moment of unabashed honesty was suddenly gone.

“This—this was a—a mistake.” His leg bumped against his brief case, causing it to fall. He mumbles a curse too soft for Harvey to hear when he bends down. About half-way through rising he apologizes once more, “I—I apologize to have—have wasted your t—time, Mr. Specter, s—sir.” He nods once then turns to the door but Donna is blocking his exit. “I’m—I’m obviously not—what y—you’re looking f—for.”

“Yes, you’re are,” Donna leans against the doorframe with her hands crossed over her chest. “Mike, forgive him, he’s an asshole—” she pauses dramatically to deliberately eye her superior.

The lawyer balks, “Donna, this isn’t what I asked you to do.”

She ignores him in favor of Mike, “—but he’s a good lawyer, the best lawyer in the New York City. You’ll learn a lot from him if you give him a chance to show you that he can be _your_ asshole.”

“Donna,” Harvey’s growl comes all the way from his desk, “I asked you to get me another _me_ , and _that_ is not another me.” He pointedly glares at his assistant, who chose to ignore him.

Donna positively beams at Mike. “Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee? Tea?”

“It’s alright, Ms. Paulsen. I don’t think that would be necessary.” Mike offers her a placating smile. He glances back briefly at Harvey, and on the last second shakes his head and turns away. “Mr. Specter’s made it clear that he doesn’t want me. I apologize for the misunderstanding.” He lowered his head and tried to pass Donna by the door but she wouldn’t let him.

The short speech catches Harvey by surprise. For a moment there, he briefly saw Mike in open-court putting on a show with the same air of unrivaled confidence—same calm demeanor telling the opposing council to ‘shove it up their ass’ _politely_.

“Harvey…”

Pulled from his daydream, he lifts his head to see Donna giving him a look that tells him everything he needs to know about one Mike Ross because after that short fiasco he knows, feels it in his gut, that there’s something—dare he say it—special about the kid.

“Wait,” he says before he registers himself speaking.

Automatically, the kid shifts and turns arounds rigidly, back straight as a board but those blue eyes are _livid_. Harvey is drawn by the fire hidden under Mike’s long dark lashes. Yes, definitely something there and he want to see it.  

“How about I make you an offer you can’t refuse?”

***

Tuesday, the following morning, Harvey graces the bullpen with his presence to dump a few ( _ahem,_ all, _ahem_ ) of his _pro bono_ cases on the rookie’s desk only to see the kid’s nose buried in another folder. He scans the area; a mountainous stack of folders is tipping dangerously to the side by Mike’s right.

“What the hell is this?” His hand lands heavily on Mike’s shoulder, stopping the kid from knocking the mountain over. Mike’s knees hit the table _hard_ when he jumps in his seat. The stack threatens to collapse.

“Mr. Specter, sir!” Mike’s eyes grow wide in recognition. He dislodges the ear pieces with the cord and shifts rocks nervously on his seat. It squeaks, loud and clear, echoing despite the ambient buzz filling the air. “What—what are you doing here?” He falls gracelessly off the chair, landing with a loud _oompf_ on his ass. “I mean, yes—sir, what can I do for you, Mr. Spe—Specter?”

Harvey’s hand darts out to steady the drooping folders, irritated when he sees a familiar scrawl at the top of the pile. “I asked you a question, _Mike_.” He barks out the name. “What the hell is all of this?” He has a hand planted at the topmost folder in the pile to keep it steady.

Mike blinks, eyes dazed, clearly disoriented by the fall but he recovers quickly. “Uhm… contracts?” he stands up slowly to straighten his pants, his shirt, then the stack.

Harvey twitches when their fingers briefly make contact. “I know that, rookie. What I’m asking is why you’re doing—” he taps his fingers on the board paper, “—all this? I haven’t given you anything to work on yet.” He releases pulls back his hand but not before scowling at the familiar scrawl on the post it. He peers over the barrier, confirming his suspicions.

Mike mumbles something under his breath, making Harvey tic.

“What was that? I don’t converse in Rookie-speak—use English.”

Mike heaves a breath and sighs. “I said, I volunteered, Mr. Specter, sir.” He ducks his head and picks up the fallen case folder which he was working on. “The other associates were swamped with work so I asked if I could give them a hand since my plate was empty. It’s just proofreading some contracts.”

Harvey discreetly surveyed the area and saw most, if not all, the associates in the pen _pretending_ to be working on something but he can tell from the buzz in the air when he entered and the lack of ambient chatter now that it this ‘work’ was staged. He couldn’t tell if Mike was being cocking by thinking he could do that amount of work or he got bullied into it. One way or another, he lets it slide for the moment.

“Well, it isn’t anymore.” He groused, plucking the case folder in Mike’s hand and slapping two of his five _pro bono_ cases on the top of the file. “I, your hiring Senior Partner, just gave you something to work on, and my work _always_ takes priority before anything else you ‘volunteer’ to do. Got it?” He may, or may not, have increased his voice and announced it for the entire bullpen to hear.

Mike stills, frozen where he stands, with the cubicle and the one-point-five-foot table between them.

“Got it?” Harvey asks again, unable to stop the mild growling from the back of his throat because no one— _absolutely no one_ —should be able to take advantage of his gullible new associate other than him. The gaggles of fresh-faced, inexperienced, lawyers were indiscreet in their eavesdropping so he takes advantage of their undivided attention. “I’m your priority, Mike, got it?”

“Y—yes, sir.” Mike shakily touches the first of Harvey’s folders.

“Good.” Harvey nods in approval. He means it as a dismissal and, if the sudden influx of noise was any measure, most of the other rookies start up their act of ‘working’ again. However, he and Mike stare at each other for a few more minutes. He fakes a cough just to break the tension.

Mike is still awkwardly standing in attention, looking like a lost little lamb.

“Yes, Mike?” Harvey lifts his eyebrow in question. “Is there a problem?”

“No, sir, Mr. Specter, sir.” Mike blushes. “I will just, uhm, get to, these, uh…” he clumsily opens one of the folders and his eyes open wide “… case! _Pro bono_. Hmm, let’s see Sexual Harassment case against… oh that’s not good…”

Harvey stays to watch a wrinkle form on Mike’s forehead while reading through the file only to close it less than two minute with a deep frown. That is not the reaction he expected from the kid. A real case, on his second day in the office, should have been monumental for him. He should have been ecstatic—not frowny.

“Done?”

 “Uhh, yes, sir,” Mike rattles in shock at Harvey’s voice. He hides his face behind the folder before peeking out like a little kid. “You’re—you’re still here, uhm, sir.”

Harvey’s still flummoxed at Donna’s decision to hire the kid. He remains to be a bit skeptical but that was a fifteen-page document that Mike swept through. He hasn’t even had the time to properly glower at the eavesdroppers yet. “So, what do you think?”

“Uhm…” Mike shifts under the scrutiny again.

Harvey attempts to soften his gaze. “Come on, rookie, I’m asking for your opinion about the case but not legal advice.”

Mike swallows his gulp and nods. “Well, uhm, in-house investigations tend to be skewed. No one in their right mind would willingly speak out against their superior, especially if he was the president of the company. Even HR would, in effect, be his employees. So that’s a start. If he’s done it to our client, then he must have done it before. I’ll subpoena their employee records before I talk to our client to save time...”

Stunned is an understatement. It’s the kid’s first real sentence to Harvey without stammer or falling all over himself. It isn’t a bad plan either. Harvey’s lips twitch into a small grin. “Sounds like a solid plan. Keep prodding until they flinch then press it where they hurt.”

Mike straightens up and gets to work in an instant. “Right away, sir.”

Harvey cannot help but chortle in amusement. “And, Mike,” he taps the kid on the head before he leaves, “Call me Harvey.”

Mike looks up with wide-eyes before he bursts into a smile, looking dorky with the bright pink blush on his face. “Of course, H—Harvey.”

Even if he’s still carrying three _pro bono_ cases in hand, Harvey feels slightly more confident in Donna’s pick. Perhaps, he should get her the handbag that she’s been dropping hints about for her birthday. He gives one last cursory glance back before rounding the corner.

Mike’s lucky that Donna chose him from all the interviewees. There must be a reason for it. The kid is talking on the phone and scribbling something on a pad like, seemingly arranging to meet the client. That, at the very least, is commendable in his books

***

Harvey forgets about Mike, and the fact that he has an associate, while he focuses on his own work. Donna and he are a good team. She vets the unwanted people trying to disturb him in his office and he rewards her with theater tickets and ice cream. He still wonders why she chose _Mike Ross_ out of all the Harvard douches from the interview. Mike’s CV is still sitting under a pile of _pro bono_ work on the side of his desk.

“ _Knock knock_ ” the all too familiar squirmy voice of Louis comes from the doorway.

“Louis,” Harvey drawls without looking up from his document, “How in did you manage to squirm your way through Donna? Did your wife bake cookies to bribe her with?” He smirks at his own joke. A glance to the side validates his theory. “You didn’t weasel your way out of anything. You waited for Donna to leave her desk! How            long were you loitering in the hallway? Do you need help weaseling your way out of your marriage too?”

 “Hardy-har-har,” Louis makes an exaggerated eye roll. “How many times to I have to tell you that I don’t—” He scowls, schools his face, and give Harvey a fake smile. “I wanted to say thank you—” Harvey freezes mid-type, brows furrowed. “—for letting your new associate help me with the Liman-Batis merger. We made a lot of money. That was generous of you.”

“Well, thank you, Louis.” Harvey grits his teeth but accepts the thanks in stride even if he was furious on the inside. “Although, I don’t particularly understand why it has to be _my_ associate; I’m surprised that you had your work proofread by a rookie on his second day.”

Louis’ face says it all, a mixture of jealousy, annoyance, and bewilderment. His furry mouth twitches. “You’re kidding me, right? Like the wife joke? Why wouldn’t I give Ross my contract? We’ve been waiting to recruit him since he scored a 190 on the LSATs _before_ he entered law school. Then he goes and graduate first of his class! … Even if he’s, you know, a bit older than our usual hires.”

“He did, did he? Huh,” Harvey reels back to take it all in.

“That’s why you hired him, right? A recommendation from Sheila from the Harvard Recruitment Office, right?” Louis clamps his mouth shut, fidgeting.

“Ms. Sasz, yes,” Harvey loosely remembers the voluptuous blonde who brought their interns last summer. “I didn’t know that you two hit it off. Louis, you dog! What would your wife say? Does _Sheila_ consent to being the other woman?”

Louis flushes and, no, that is too much for Harvey’s need-to-know. All further interrogations about Mike’s hiring is pushed aside for now due to Louis’ embarrassment.

“Well, give Ms. Sasz the firm’s gratitude, Louis.” Harvey double-taps the screen, highlighting long line of letters when he accidentally pressed ‘H’ by mistake, hoping that Louis takes his offered out and leave the room. The other man, thankfully, does, excusing himself and jumping in the air when Donna rounds the corner. She gives him the stink eye then rushes to Harvey’s office with blood lust in her eyes.

“He snuck in while I was doing my rounds, didn’t he?”

Harvey does not bother nodding. Donna glowers. “What did want? What did he say? Do you want me to call Norma and tattle on Louis again?” Then a lightbulb turns on in her head. “I know! I’ll bribe Norma with a SPA-date and have her spill his secret for ammunition.”

“No need for that, Donna.” Harvey laughs but waves her idea away. “Surprisingly, Louis came here to _thank me_ for the Liman-Batis merger.” She opens her mouth but closes it again, unsure of what to say because Louis _never_ says thanks. He nods in silent agreement to her speechlessness. “Apparently, someone pawned his contracts to Mike, and the rookie finished it today.”

Donna’s face lightens up in recognition. “Of course, he would. Mike’s only been here for a day. Oh! The poor puppy! I bet he got bullied into accepting those case files.” She makes a ‘tsk tsk tsk’ noise under her breath. “Do you want me to go mama-bear on the big bad associates? Then teach Mike how to use an ax instead of crying for help?”

Harvey rolls his eyes. “Donna,” he exasperates, “if you’re gonna quote fairytales, you could at least choose just one instead of bastardizing—” he mentally counts in his head “—three of them.”

Donna clutches her heat mockingly. “Oh, tender heart be still. Be careful there, Harvey, your Brooklyn is showing.”

“Did Sheila Sasz come in during the interview? You know; small, blonde, busty, from Harvard?” He waits for signs of recognition on her face but she shakes her head. Harvey raises his eyebrow. “Really, now? Then how do you expect me to believe that Harvard’s top graduate just walked into a Chilton Conference Room for an interview process that we didn’t even advertise?”

“Harvey, you wound me.” Donna says, feigning insult. “Of course, we advertised. What, do you think I am _inefficient_ at my job?” She wrinkles her face at the insult. “Printed in every newspaper, broadcasted in every radio station, and a bulletin email through the Harvard’s alumni database office. I would have made a 30-second TV commercial, if I didn’t value my pretty face being private.”

Nearly ten years, they’ve worked together and yet Donna still astounds him.

“So why did you choose Mike?”

“Nu-uh, Harvey.” She tuts, “The question is; why Mike chose us. I don’t need to tell you that there were several bounty hunters gunning for him, and _that_ ’s from what he told me. I had Laura in HR sniff around if there were any others hunting the kid. Do you want me to send you the names of the other firms?”

Curious, Harvey nods but he is still unconvinced of her reason. Donna dutifully goes back to her cubicle. An email notification appears on Harvey’s laptop not five minutes later. He checks the attachment and balks in amazement—no less than twenty names are listed with all of Manhattan’s top-tier law firms glaring at him from the computer screen.

Maybe it’s time he reviews Mike’s CV.

***

Harvey is not astonished often—

—but he is impressed by Mike’s CV.

***

He now understands what Louis meant.

Still, there’s book-smart and then there’s street-smart.

‘Michael James Ross’ might sound credible on paper but real life is a different story. Theory and application are not necessarily mutually inclusive.

***

Donna is happily sipping on a fragrant coffee cocktail when Harry arrives at his office. He sneaks a peek at the label, and is flabbergasted at the fact that it _isn’t_ from some overly popular but lackluster coffee shop that were sprouting like mushrooms all over Manhattan. She answers his piqued interest with a smug grin.

“Two words, Harvey—toasted marshmallows.” She sighs dramatically while holding onto the cup like it was made of pure gold. “Your puppy knows how to charm his way around a lady. He knows how much I watch my figure.”

“Ah-huh,” Harvey shakes his head and says nothing else as he steps into his office. It’s different. For one, there’s a folder neatly placed at the center of his desk with an office-supplied yellow post-it. Second is the missing case folders on his desk which he is a hundred percent sure that he left here yesterday. He turns towards the intercom, “Donna…?”

Her voice crackles to life from the intercom. “There you thought that the puppy didn’t bring you anything. I let him keep your coffee. He looked like he needed it. The hearing is scheduled for this afternoon, one o’clock. It’s already on your calendar. You’ve got Judge Aubuchon—”

Harvey cuts her off. “Book me a table near the courthouse for lunch and have Ray come around by eleven.” He instructs while flipping through the fifty-something pages of precedents research, compiled neatly with a table of content and court ruling index on the first five pages. She gives him the affirmative. “And Donna,” he add, sitting, “Make it a table for two.”

“Aren’t you even going to check if you’ve got anything on your itinerary at eleven? Shame on you Harvey, what if you have something important!”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “If it was really important, then you wouldn’t have rescheduled the hearing knowing that Aubuchon was the judge. But seeing as you didn’t… I’m sure you’ve already moved it and sent my deepest apologies to whoever it was I was meeting.” He looks up from the folder to wink at her.  “A wise man would not underestimate you, Donna.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She huffs, sipping her coffee one more time before she gets back to work.

***

Harvey causes a tiny uproar when he shows up in the bullpen for the second time in the week. After climbing up the ranks to junior partner, he normally drops in on rare occasion when he needs more heads to help him with a case. Most of the time, he pops in to bother Louis in his ‘turf’ just to piss him off when he got bored. It’s no surprise that heads turn theatrically when he passes their cubicles.

The kid is sitting at his station, ear pieces on, completely absorbed in his work while absently nodding his head to beat of some jam on his phone. Harvey takes the opportunity to walk behind the chair and peer over the blond man’s shoulder. No less than twenty different documents are open and a single web browser with a dozen or so tabs. He leans in absentmindedly without noticing that his face is an inch away from his startle-prone associate.

“Too much on your plate, rookie?” he asks, right next to Mike’s ear.

Mike jolts up in surprise, cocking Harvey’s jaw with his shoulder, making them both wince.

“Harvey!”

“Motherfuc—”

The momentum causes Harvey to stumble off balance and instinct dictates that he latches on to the nearest available leverage—which happens to be Mike. They stumble awkwardly for a few seconds before Harvey’s weight tips their center of gravity, forcing them to collapse on the floor. Harvey’s breath gets knocked out of his lungs when Mike falls on top of him with a _thud_.

“Harvey!” Mike squeaks, pushing up on his elbows but pressing their lower half together. They’re straddling each other’s thighs and Mike’s right knee is perched precariously near Harvey’s crotch.

“Don’t. Stop.” Harvey grabs Mike by the biceps and hauls him back down. “Roll over,” he commands to a red-faced Mike, who is looking at him with utter terror. “This is not a sexual advancement on your person, Mike. This is me avoiding a knee to the crotch due to your clumsiness. I will not walk in front of a judge with sore balls.” His speech only makes things worse because Mike starts to _squirm_ in order to follow.

Harvey groans and rolls them over himself. Below him, Mike’s hair is an utter mess, pooling like a halo of gold around his head on the carpet. He curses internally, trying to stand up as gracefully as his wobbly legs could help him. His knees are crying out fouls. Still, like a gentleman, he offers Mike a hand.

“T—thank you.” Mike ducks his head and takes Harvey’s hand. Another prickle of _something_ sends goosebumps running up Harvey’s arm just like the last time they touched. Mike straightens his suit jacket and his pants, blushing seven shades of red.

“Jesus, are you always this clumsy? It’s the second time this week!”

“I, uh, uhm, n—no.”

Harvey rubs his head in irritation, feeling a head ache coming along. “Well, then, come on, Ray should be rounding the curb any minute now.” He says before turning towards the exit. He has enough of a scandal for one day, thank you very much. All he wants is to get out of sight for the prying eyes as soon as possible without letting his embarrassment show on his face. Five paces done and he notices no footsteps are following him.

“Mike?” He turns to see Mike still gawking at him from the cubicle. “Didn’t you hear me? We’re going out or do I need a doggie whistle before you’ll follow?” At that, Mike moves in a flash, hurrying to his side. “Next time,” He tells his associate, “Next time I ask you to follow, you follow. Else you’ll start fueling the rumor mills and, trust me, you really don’t want that.”

Ray is parked by the curb, waiting, when they exit the building.

“Good Morning, Harvey.” The driver greets with a smile. “No coffee. I don’t want to upset your stomach before lunch.”

“Good Morning, Ray.” Harvey nods in approval. He turns to present Mike. “Ray this is Mike, my new associate. Mike, this is Ray, the only one I trust to drive me anywhere in the city. I also happen to like his music choices. Perhaps you’ll learn a thing or two about _real_ music.” He slides easily into the passenger’s seat and points for Mike to go through the other side.

Mike quickly, but gracelessly, follows, hitting his head on the roof of the vehicle before slumping on the leather upholstery of the backseat. The car starts and they peel off the curb with Ray playing some classic Etta Jones on the radio.  

Fifteen minutes, and Harvey slices through the terse silence that fell between them. “Louis thanked me the other day.”

“Oh,” Mike says, not understanding. He merely folds his body closer to the door, obviously trying to take up as little space as possible despite having enough room to fit three people comfortably.

“It was about the Liman-Batis merger…”

“Ahh,” comes the quiet recognition, “I remember that. I’ve never seen so many run-on sentences in my life.” He makes an annoyed little sound at the back of his throat, conveying how he felt about run-on sentences. Harvey finds it endearing.

“… he doesn’t give out compliments often but thanking me meant that that he was impressed.”

A blush colors Mike’s cheeks again. “T—thank you.”

Up close, Harvey can see the dark bags under the kid’s eyes, highlighted by the paleness of his skin, but those _lashes_ are long enough that he would feel a breeze whenever Mike blinks. He stops himself right then and there because Harvey Specter _does not_ think about his associate’s eye lashes, no matter how long or how pretty.

***

Harvey takes Mike to lunch at a medium-scale Persian place. He finds out that Mike is not adventurous when it comes to food, a fact that a few visits to Marcus would surely remedy. They eat, talk in code about the facts concerning the case, and for the first time since being promoted Harvey finds that he is actually enjoying lunch.

Mike orders a takeaway slice of pie _for his grandmother_ , and Harvey chuckles at the lame excuse. He pays for it anyway. It’s going on the corporate card anyway.

He convinces the judge to rule in their favor, forcing Devlin McGregor to handover the requested files. The look on Mike’s face after the ruling was filled with amazement and wonder, floundering with his words for a solid ten minutes while they waited for a taxi.

“When we get back, you should take a nap,” He blurts out without thinking, stopping Mike mid-rant on how ‘Harvey kicked ass in court’. While usually, Harvey is all about gloating his greatness, the tiredness in Mike’s eye was just too much to handle. It is evidently the wrong thing to say because Mike completely freezes up and remains silent, eventually falling asleep, for the rest of the ride back to the office.  

“Mike,” he prods the slumbering man who mumbles incoherently. He shakes Mike by the shoulder a little firmer but to no avail. “I mean it, Mike. Come up to my office and sleep it off. You look like you’re about to drop on your feet.”

“Hmm—mmkay,” Mike replies sleepily as he leans heavily on Harvey the entire ride back to Harvey’s office. They get stared at, and gawked at, and one nameless associate spills his coffee on another nameless associate because he was too busy watching them instead of where he was going. The sharp yelp and the slap that follows steals their thunder and they exit the elevator without a hitch.

Donna gives Harvey the same questioning look but opens the door for him.

Harvey mutters a hurried thanks before herding Mike through the door and depositing his limp lithe body on the sofa, his coat thrown over his shivering form. Donna makes a humming sound from behind him.

“You were right. He did need the coffee this morning.”

“I know. I’m Donna.”

With a shake of his head, Harvey puts down the box of pie on the coffee table then gets back to work. He lets Mike sleep off the exhaustion for the rest of the afternoon, caring not for the familiar face he saw inside the elevator.

***

The associate’s perk up in interest when Harvey goes to the bullpen in search for Mike. They’re all trying and failing to be subtle at vying for his acknowledgement. The messy tuff of blond hair is nowhere missing. Mike’s desk is stocked with case folders—another new stack from the looks of it—which doesn’t make sense since he’s only ‘assigned’ two cases while Mikes ‘stole’ the rest of his _pro bono_.

It doesn’t add up, at all.

He walks closer for a better look. He feels the tension in the room rise with every step he takes which makes him even more curious. One brave individual, although Harvey will never in a million years remember the lanky punk’s name, approaches him with a determined gait. He can almost hear the collective intake of breath from their audience.

 “Oh, uh, excuse me, uh Harvey? I was wondering if you might need a hand with some of your, uh—” the vaguely familiar intern—or was he an associate (?)—glances at his case folders like they are some kind of prize or trophy or _something_ , making Harvey smirk internally. “—matters.”

Harvey shoves his free hand inside his pants pocket, standing a little straighter, but keeps his face impassive. He knows some of the associates hero-worship him because, let’s face it, he was _the_ youngest Senior Partner in the firm, making him _the_ hottest commodity in the market.

 “Well, Allen—”

“—It’s Aaron, sir.” The associate—Harvey can’t even tell if he’s a rookie or not—tries and fails to hide a grimace.

“It’s ‘Mr. Specter’ and I think that says it all, don’t you?” He spares a second to glance at the bullpen, and is not the least bit astonished that almost half of the puppies were half-standing in attention. A part of him is disappointed that Mike isn’t part of his spectators. By passing the unwitting man, he goes directly into Mike’s cubicle and plunks down on the uncomfortable rolling desk chair.

The kid’s work station is organized chaos and that was a big compliment. At the very least, he expected Harvard’s top graduate to have some semblance of order but clearly god intended all man to have their faults. There are empty cans of disgusting red bull overflowing the trashcan underneath the desk and  an entire warehouse of office supplies in every color imaginable littering on top of it.

He rolls back, deciding to snoop at the case folders. However, instead of gliding through the carpeted space, Harvey finds himself staring at the off-white linoleum tiles of the ceiling in less than a heartbeat. “What the fuck?” He gasps with pain starting to bloom at the back of his head, shoulders, and ass. “What the flying fuck?”

“Mr. Specter!”

In the blink of an eye, he’s being crowded by associates on all sides, breathing in his much-needed air.

“Mr. Specter, are you all right?”

“Should we call an ambulance?”

“Do you think he’s okay?”

“Mr. Specter? Mr. Specter?”

He hears them talking over his head while he blinks away the stars in his vision. Then, very faintly, a soft “Jesus! How was I supposed to know _he_ was going to sit down?!” being hissed in the background.

“GET OFF!” He growls, composed enough _not_ to bare his teeth—at least, not yet, not while everything is hearsay. “Has no one of you ever been to a CPR class? You’re taking all my air! And, one of you get me an ice pack and the rest of you get back to your stations! You weren’t hired to be gossip-mongrels, so scat!” He waits for them to scatter before gingerly sitting up, wincing as his head continues to throb.

Something wrinkles under his hand. Case folders are strewn all over the floor. He sees no less than a dozen contracts for proofing and a few cases that he _knows_ were delegated to another associate on this floor. Other partners are one thing but the thought of _associates_ pawning work to _his_ associate pisses him off. That, and the chair was tampered with just adds fuel to his rage.

He wretches the ice pack from an unknown associate’s hands and places it on the back of his head. It’s easier to fix his hair rather than nurse a burgeoning bruise. Everything about his screams ‘get away’ and the smart ones give him a wide girth. He curses under his breath and calls Donna. She picks up on the second ring.

“Where’s Mike?”

“ _Conference Room C._ ”

“What the hell is he doing there?”

“ _McGregor send their personnel files yesterday afternoon._ ”

He makes a mental note to send in a new chair to replace the tampered one. That way, it couldn’t be screwed with without arousing suspicion. He’ll get the most comfortable one.

Fifteen minutes later, Harvey finds Mike elbows deep in a mountain of personnel files—jacket buried underneath the heap, tie loosened, and sleeves folded to expose his forearms, as he reads through the document on his lap. Not even the squeak of the rubber guards distracts him from his task.

The older man leans against the door frame and watches his associate for a minute, watching with no lack of amazement as Mike flips through the pages like a one-man keyword search engine. It’ll have the owners of google get a run for their money. He sees the empty wrappers of protein bars and red bulls are hidden under Mike’s knees.

“You aren’t supposed to eat here.” He says in lieu of a greeting.

Instead of jumping like he always did when Harvey was around, Mike grunts but otherwise doesn’t respond. He caps off the document with a noise of disappointment and tosses it to a large pile on his right side. He grabs the next one in the box by his left and automatically start the scanning process all-over again.

Harvey glances at the stacks on either side of the room. It must be at least thirty boxes. More than half of which are in the disaster zone on Mike’s right while those on the left were relatively pristine.

“Christ, kid, did you stay up all night?”

Mike, with much thought, hums in response. It doesn’t seem like he’s realized exactly who was talking to him, too preoccupied with speeding through the text. He tosses the file with a disgruntled huff and repeating the process with yet another file from the box. There will probably be permanent Mike-shaped ass-prints on the carpet right next to the door.

***

That night, Harvey gets barreled in the chest by an ecstatic-looking Mike who is vibrating with barely contained energy. He wraps one of his arms around Mike’s waist on instinct to regain some semblance of balance. The kid isn’t paying attention. He doesn’t even have his jacket with him and he kind of stinks.

“We should file sanctions!” Mike bravely tells Harvey hurriedly, unperturbed by their closeness. “March 12, 2005! There was a dismissal but the employee’s name was stricken form the record! It’s our woman! I know it is!”

“Woah. Woah there, kid!” Harvey admonishes. Their faces are inches away. While he isn’t shy in the least, they were in the middle of the partner’s floor, granted that they were alone. It still makes him feel the tiniest uncomfortable with Mike’s entire length pressed against him. He carefully peels himself away.

“The guys won’t know what hit him! I’m moving to slap sanction on their attorney, possible jail time!”

Clearly, Harvey thinks, the red bull is still in effect because otherwise Mike wouldn’t be able to speak to him in coherent sentences. Let alone, boss him around like the kid is doing right now. It’s strangely adorable, in a way, not that he’ll ever be caught dead admitting that aloud. Mike starts to literally _vibrate_ , bouncing with the balls of his feet.

“Christ, Mike, it’s—” he checks his watch, “—eleven in the evening—” he stops dead, and the realization should not have come as such a surprise to him, “Did you really spent the entire two days going through those files _alone_? Are you some freaking robot or something?”

That seems to snap Mike back into reality. He nods timidly. “I, uhm… I like to read…?” he sounds like he’s unsure of it himself.

“And you’re running on what? Protein bars and red bull?”

Mike flushes. “Uhm, yes?”

Harvey rolls his eyes with a groan because his associate clearly had a death wish via bad junk food and battery acid. He grabs Mike by the back collar of his shirt and drags him out of the building, stomping.

“H—Harvey? Wha—t? Wher—e?”

“We are going to eat.” He replies in a matter-of-fact tone like he’s not breaking all of his personal rules about ‘not caring’. He shoves a fumbling Mike into the back of a taxi and barks the destination to the cabbie. He then turns to Mike and starts counting with his fingers.

“Don’t overthink, rookie. One, because I’m feeling peckish” a bold-faced lie, “Two, I will not explain to Jessica why my associate _dropped dead_ before his first week is over. Three, you _dying_ is too much paperwork, and I bill by the hour. Got it?”

Mike frantically nods like he’s being threatened.

“Good.” Harvey leans back in approval. The Manhattan traffic is a disaster even nearing midnight. By the time they reach the intended restaurant, Mike has his head lolled to one side with a thin line of drool on the corner of his mouth. He pays the cabbie extra to wait so that he can go to the small diner and order some takeaway. He hated to waste a trip and he is already here anyway.

It isn’t until they’re half-way to his condo when he realizes that _he doesn’t know where Mike lives_.

“Mike,” he shoves at his associate’s shoulder hard but the kid doesn’t even stir. He curses under his breath, counts to ten inside his head, and decides to _fuck it_ and take the kid home. It’s been a long day and he’s too goddamn tired to think of a better alternative. It does not, absolutely does not, involve him fantasizing about the damn kid borrowing his clothes.

When they get to his high-rise building, he manhandles Mike out of the cab, into the building, his private glass elevator, until they reach his professionally decorated apartment. Mike, as if sensing he was ‘home’ starts stripping on autopilot before collapsing like a ton of brinks of Harvey’s couch, drooling instantly on the decorative throw pillows.

Harvey, most absolutely does not, stare at the Mike’s ass in a pair of skimpy pink lace panties before covering the kid with a spare comforter. Seeing Mike’s state of undress, he lights up the fire and increases the temperature for good measure, lying to himself by saying that a sick associate is not good to him, and _not_ because he cares.  

***

_THUD. BOOM. CLANG._

Harvey startles awake with sounds coming from outside his bedroom. He flounders for a few minutes, tugging at the sheet in an attempt to cover his shivering body but to no avail. It’s not the thick comforter that he is used to having. Eventually he stumbles into irritable wakefulness and growls at his missing thin blanket which failed to bring him any warmth.

He pads out of the bedroom in search of the noise maker, completely forgetting that he brought Mike home last night, which is why he is up before the sun on a Saturday morning he’s face-to-back with his associate clad in only a pair of small blue boxer shorts.

“Mike? Would you stop making all that racket?” He grumbles like a petulant child but he doesn’t care because weekends were sacred to him. He already busts his ass from morning until midnight on a regular basis at the firm, and weekends were his only chance at a proper eight-hours of sleep.

Mike squeaks and jumps, one leg shoved into his pants while he balances carefully on the other. The sudden action tips him off balance and sends him flying to the coffee table. He narrowly misses the table by inches but ends up flat on the floor, on his side, staring like a deer caught in headlights at his boss. The position does nothing to hide the way his panties _do not_ have substantial coverage of his balls.

“H—Harvey! What am I—why am I—I don’t know what I’m doing here.” He says lamely, pulling up his pants the rest of the way. His cheeks are fire engine red again and Harvey wonder if Mike’s hiding a pack or two of spare blood with all his goddamn blushing all the time. He also, discretely, _does not_ check out Mike’s naked torso. It’s not his fault that the pesky pink nipples were _hard_.

Instead of answering, Harvey saunters back into the kitchen and leaves Mike half-naked on his living room floor. He goes through the motions of reheating what was supposed to be last night’s dinner by shoveling everything into ceramic plates and shoving it one by one into the microwave. The kitchen fills with the smell of Thai by the time he hollers for Mike to join him.

Mike comes in with two left feet.

Harvey more than disappointed that the kid was back in yesterday’s clothes. His face crinkles slightly at the stench but says nothing, reminding himself that Mike’s been in that miserable excuse for a suit for the past _three and a half_ days. It would surprise him more if the blond _didn’t_ smell a little.

“Breakfast, right…” he catches Mike mumbling, sure that he wasn’t supposed to hear it.

“Dinner, actually,” With a smirk, he slides an plate with utensils in Mike’s general direction without enough force to knock it off the table. “But someone drooled on my way to the restaurant, got naked the second we were passed the threshold and decided to slum it on my couch so we didn’t get to eat dinner. Do you know how humiliating it is to order takeaway with drool stains on my suit?”

“I—uhm,” Mike ducks his head to avoid making eye contact. “Sorry.” He squeaks while uncomfortably squirming on his seat. That isn’t the reaction Harvey wanted. He just really wants to get the kid to _loosen_ up a bit like the night before. He isn’t overly fond of the tongue-twisted awkward-as-hell persona in front of him. He knows there’s a bit of spunk in there _somewhere_.

“Would you, I don’t know, relax? Contrary to popular bullpen folklore, I do not eat associates young hearts and sacrifice their carcasses to the law gods to gain their favor.” Harvey smiles when Mike snorts quietly. He piles noodles and shrimp and dumplings into Mike’s plate then fills his own. “Eat. Shower. You already woke me up. We might as well make this day useful.”

“I—” Mike opens his mouth but ends up asking wordlessly instead.

“Eat. Shower.” Harvey doesn’t answer and goes back to his food.

Mike carefully eats the offered food without so much as a clatter of silverware against the plates. It’s painfully obvious that he was dutifully _not_ looking at Harvey, and instead his eyes were flittering around the room for anywhere else to look at. The only silver-lining is that he helps himself to seconds.   

Most morning-afters do not tend to be this awkward and nervous and tense. It’s weird not only because he is thinking of Mike as a morning-after but the fact that he didn’t even sleep-sleep with the kid and sleeping in the not-so-innocent sense was the main reason _for_ morning-afters, not some exhausted wanna-be lawyer taking up his couch without his permission.

Harvey keeps an eye on Mike while he shuffles through the morning paper. He watches as Mike mechanically stands, washes his plate in the sink, wipes it dry with a towel, then stands just to the side of the table.

“Door to the right in the hall. There’s a fresh towel in the rank. You can use anything you see in there except my toothbrush. There should be a fresh one behind the mirror-cabinet by the sink. Take your time. I don’t usually like rushing on Saturday mornings. Don’t lock the door and leave your dirty clothes on the sink. I’ll pick them up and drop you off a change of clothes.” He orders without looking up but sure enough the sound of the bathroom door opening and closing echoes the apartment. There isn’t a lock click.

There’s quite a bit of discrepancy in their sizes. Harvey has to rummage through the very back of his humungous walk-in in order to dig-up his old university clothes. He’s grown quite a bit of muscle since his Harvard days. He finds an t-shirt and dark jeans. At least, Mike won’t be looking like he’s doing the walk of shame.

Harvey might have overlooked the fact that he had a glass shower with absolutely no privacy screen. He walks into the bathroom and hears the shower running. The steam fogs up the glass but the unmistakable outline of Mike’s naked form can be seen—no, ogles—from where he stands. It’s unprofessional and borderline sexual harassment but he stops to _stare_ at the contours of Mike’s shoulder, sides, hips, ass, and thighs with all that hot water sliding down the soft-looking skin.

“Harvey?” Mike turns with a feeble attempt to cover himself up. “Are those—can I borrow those?”

Harvey fakes a cough. “Uhm, uh, yeah,” he says, feeling like the dirty old man that he is even if he’s not even forty. “I’ll throw these in the wash. They should be ready by the time we get back.”

He stomps out of the room and retreats his safe haven. The door of his bedroom hasn’t even clicked when he shoves his boxers downs and jerks off. He comes seconds later with the image of Mike’s naked form pressed against the shower walls, wet and slippery and hot, and Mike’s name as a silent prayer on his lips. He clutches at the pair of soiled panties in his hands and jerks off again.

***

They go to Harvey’s favorite tailor, Renee’s. The large up-scale shop along 8th street isn’t busy so close to opening time. Renee is leaning against their fully-operational complementary bar talking to his assistant Claudia who is sitting on a bar stool when Harvey and Mike walk in. There’s a flash of recognition in the man’s eyes, opening his mouth and closing it again before giving Harvey his customary smile.

“Harvey, Harvey, what a surprise to see you not that it’s any hardship. You know it’s always a pleasure to see you. What can I do for you today?” Renee asks, peering over Harvey’s shoulder with a gasp. He quickly covers up his frown and looks back to Mike. “I see you’ve brought… a friend.”

“I know I usually book an appointment but this is an emergency.”

“I see.” Renee walks over to Mike with a knowing look of recognition in his eyes. “I suppose _this_ is the problem, isn’t it?” he says with an air of familiarity. “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he turns to Harvey. “You know I love surprises but isn’t this a bit too much? Desecrating my sacred space with _denim_ but I’ll forgive you, _Harvey,_ ” he purrs out the name, “since your one of my best clients.”

“Claudia!” He snaps his fingers and his long-haired assistant materializes at his side. “Take him to the backroom with some—” he makes a disgusted face, “RTWs.” Then turns back to Harvey, “You don’t suppose we’ll have time for full measurements, do you?”

Harvey simply grins. “By all means if you’re free. It wouldn’t hurt to have the kid’s measurements on record.”

Mike lets out a yelp of indignation as he’s ushered into the backroom.

“Oh, Harvey, you wouldn’t know.” Renee tells him mysteriously. “Where on earth this you find him? He’ll look marvelous in a three-piece if you can convince him to buy one. I assume he’s paying?”

“Didn’t,” Harvey shrugs and shakes his head, “Donna did. He’s my new associate. Came into work with a shabby department store suit that I bet is a three-for-a-hundred on sale piece of waste.” Renee laughs at the joke with him. “Told you it was an emergency. But, yeah, I think I’ll get this one.”

“Ohhh!” Renee catches on quickly and smiles brightly, “Jessica finally gave you that promotion! This calls for a celebration and by celebration I mean a new suit for your firm’s new senior partner! In that case, double it up! I’ll make sure you _and your new associate_ will be turning heads in the office on Monday just the way you like it!”

And when Renee makes a promise, he follows through on it.

***

Monday morning and Harvey walks into the office to the sound of numerous catcalls following in his wake. It pumps him with an extra ounce of confidence. Jessica doesn’t miss a beat when she steps into step beside him, looking tall and regal in her four-inch killer heels and perfectly pressed dress.

“Someone’s looking _dapper_ this morning,” She says in lieu of a good-morning, “I assume that’s because you’re making progress on the _pro bono_ cases I gave you last week?”

“As a matter of fact, we are. Mike’s interviewed the witness for the McGregor and found an employee dismissal with the name redacted on the file last Friday. It might be out missing link to proving that the son-of-a-birth CEO is a repeat sexual harasser. I’m threatening Dennis with sanctions if he doesn’t hand over the missing files before lunch.”

“Well, well, well,” Jessica sounds impressed, “I see that you’ve finally embraced the ‘mentoring’ part of your new position. I’m proud of you Harvey. You chose a good kid there with Michael Ross. I’m surprised at how we even got him to go to the interview.” She leaves him in the corridor, confused as hell.

Harvey shrugs and tries to brush off the weird conversation. It plagues him even after he triumphantly calls Dennis and threatens the man with sanctions, and continues to bother him for the rest of the morning. The file arrives just before lunch. He orders Donna to call Mike to his office.

“What the hell are you wearing?” He glares. Not only is Mike half-an-hour late but he is also wearing a ugly-as-hades novelty NYC sweatshirt that looks like it was bought from the nearest souvenir shop. “Did you come to the office wearing _that_?”

“I, uhm… no,” Mike fidgets.

Harvey continues to glare at the tasteless fonts used to print the letters ‘NYC’ in big bolt pink glittering letters. “You’re going to tell me right now why you aren’t dressed _appropriately_ for the office or I swear to god that I will fire you right this instant!”

“You can’t!” Mike cries, “It was—an—an accident. I swear. I promise!”

“An accident?”

Mike fumbles with the hem of his grey sweatshirt. “I, uhm, spilled my drink this morning.”

Harvey rubs his temples. “You spill something on your suit, you go to the bathroom and wash it away. You don’t go out and but the gaudiest piece of crap from the nearest mom-and-pop store! What happened? Did drench yourself in an entire cup of liquid that rendered it unusable?”

“Yes.” It was soft but Harvey heard it.

“Come again?”

Mike scratches the back of his head. “Just—just some harmless prank, I guess. I’m sure they didn’t mean it to—to, uhm…” Harvey warns him to continues, “tomakeitspill.”

Harvey watches at Mike winces when he accidently slides a finger beneath the hem. “What _exactly_ did you spill, Mike?” Mike mumbles something under his breath. “Louder and slower, Mike. What.did.you.spill?”

“Coffee.”

“Was it hot?”

“Yes.”

With a growl, Harvey grabs Mike by the arm and brings him to the nearest men’s room. He then proceeds to wrestle off Mike’s sweatshirt. His eyes widen at the splotches of angry red skin until his view is obscured by the waistline of Mike’s pant. “The coffee was hot.” It wasn’t a question and Mike nods meekly.

“I—uhm—It was an accident.”

“Tell me.” Harvey demands while he busies himself. He wets a thick wad of paper towels with cold water and presses it to Mike’s skin. It would be better if he can get running water directly on the surface but this will have to suffice.

Mike winces at the cold hits his irritated skin. “I—I saw a cup on my desk and I—“ he hisses when Harvey presses a new set, “—I thought they were being nice.”

“Nice, wouldn’t give you marks like this.” Harvey snarls, placing set lower on Mike’s skin, almost to the waistband. He dares not thinks of what is _underneath_ the slacks and about what Mike could be wearing. Thankfully, he does not recognize it was one of Renee’s creations. The fabric was cheap cotton.

“Sorry.” Mike mumbles, fingers clutching the marble sink as he fidgets under Harvey’s ministrations.

Harvey presses a bit harder, making Mike yelp. “This isn’t your fault. Office pranks are meant to be _funny_ not painful. Do you know who did this?” Mike looks like he does but he shakes his head. It annoys Harvey to no end. “Fine,” he grouses, pulling away. “Get out of the office. Go to Renee’s and change into your new suit before you meet with Joanna, our missing employee. Convince her to come testify for our client. Don’t go back to your cubicle when you come back. Go straight to me, understood?”

“Y—yes, Harvey.” Mike shakily pushes off the counter and put his sweatshirt back on, making his hair fly all over the place. “And,” he manages to say before Harvey’s out the door, “thank you for—for the chair and—th—this.” He says, blushing again.

“I took you on as an associate, Mike, and that makes you my responsibility. That means I teach you and I keep you safe. So, if you’re ready to come clean about what’s been happening in the bullpen, I’ll be more than happy to intervene on your behalf. I don’t want to fight your battles for you because I think you can handle them yourself.”

***

Later, Mike enters Harvey’s office with a bounce to his step. “I got her to testify!”

Harvey smiles fondly at the way Mike raises his hands in the air with pride. He listens to Mike’s animated re-enactment of the meeting with Joanna. Mike’s joy isn’t the only thing he’s noticing, nope. The kid’s in one of Renee’s tailored suits that fits him like a glove, hugging his curves, accentuating his tempered waist, and making him look taller and leaner than he actually is. In short, Mike looks ready to eat in his suit with disappointingly is void of a vest.

“Dinner,” he offers as Mike turns to leave, “a proper one, without you falling asleep on me in the cab.”

Mike’s face colors in a dozen shakes of red. “I, uh…”

“I’m not asking.”

“Oh,” Mike starts to do the shifting thing with his feet again.

“Casual. No strings. It’s just mentor teaching his mentee the finer things in life which he’ll need in this line of business.”

Mike chokes on his own snort. “What does food have to do with lawyering?”

“Nothing,” Harvey replies confidently and Mike raises an eyebrow. “But it has everything to do with how to _make it_ in the corporate jungle. You’ll have to stand out in order not to get washed away with the reject and for you to stand out, you’ve got to know a trick or two up your sleeve that nobody is expecting?”

“And that means food?” Mike looks unconvinced.

“A good bottle of wine can soften clients into signing a deal.”

“Deal.”

***

Harvey does not bring Mike to the fanciest place he knows. Instead, he brings him to a small mom-and-pop built in the early fifties near the Financial district. It’s full and there’s a line but the hostess recognizes Harvey and waves them to come to the front of the line with a smile.

“Mr. Specter, it’s a pleasure to see you again. I’ll seat you in a moment.”

“Mr. Specter, huh?” Mike snorts under his hand like it wasn’t meant for Harvey to hear.

The hostess comes back before Harvey can say anything. The inside is rustic with basket of fresh fruits and wines displayed on the bar, wooden tables and wicker chairs, black cast iron light pieces, and bricks covering the bottom half of the walls. She leads them to small round table near the window with a view of the city. Their waitress casually flirts with Harvey when they order, and he sees Mike frowning in the corner of his eye.

“You don’t like it?”

Mike ducks his head and stares the hands he’s folded on his lap. “No, it’s nice.”

Harvey misses the free-spoken Mike from the last Friday. “How about a bottle of wine? Their selection here is good.” It does not take much to warm Mike up with a bottle of sweet wine, nothing that a good night’s rest will filter out of their systems but enough to lick down their throats as it goes down.

“This doesn’t seem like your kind of place,” a slightly tipsy looking Mike says while twirling pasta on his fork. Harvey makes a non-committal hum in reply. “I mean… you strike me like the fancy-shmancy kind guy, you know? Roof tops, high-rises, eating in a floating hot-air balloon restaurant, on in some place underneath the sea kind of dude. Not—” He waves vaguely at the simple cannoli on Harvey’s plate, “—that.”

Harvey snorts into his wine glass. “I wasn’t always a lawyer, you know?”

“Yeah?” Mike challenges, “What were you then if you weren’t a lawyer, Mr. I’m-the-best-closer-in-New-York-City?”

“I was actually in the mail room once.” Harvey smiles to himself at the memory. That had been so long ago that he nearly forgot; except, he can never forget being in that mailroom with a busted shoulder running his dreams of the major leagues and having Jessica find him. He tells Mike as much, and about his dreams of becoming a baseball star.

Mike hums, looking at Harvey apprehensively. “Yeah, you would have been hot in those Yankee uniforms.”

“Really? I bet you would have been a fan.” Harvey raises and eyebrow at Mike’s brash comment. He cannot imagine someone as sweet as sin like Mike Ross having a dirty mouth but wine does wonders. Only a smirk on Mike’s lips answers him.

He’s venturing on sexual harassment territory. “I bet you would have jerked off to my posters in college, huh?” he murmurs quietly to himself but Mike hears him.

“If you had a poster for being lawyer, I would have.”

The quiet confession shocks Harvey almost out of his seat. He stares at Mike—at those pink lips, rosy cheeks, and eyes half-lidded. He knows it’s wrong to continue this conversation any further but Mike is turning on all of his buttons. He does not even want to think about what Mike’s hiding underneath his suit but wishes desperately that it’s another pair of lacy panties.

“You would have, huh?”

“Yeah,” Mike turns his answer into a moan. The lighting is dimmed at night for added ambiance. But Harvey can see Mike is trying to subtly re-adjust himself without using his hands. “Yeah, I would have.” The offer to take him home is on the tip of Harvey’s tongue.

“As much as I love you, big brother, I serve mob bosses here once a week and what your boy’s doing is unsanitary even for my shady business.” Marcus abruptly stops the invitation from happening and forces it instead. “The meal is on the house if you can get him out of my restaurant as discreetly as possible. I mean if Harvey, or Linda’s going to fry my balls for the next special tonight.”

Harvey turns crimson in the middle of the restaurant, mortified by the fact that he was about to _let_ Mike jerk off in very public place without saying a word about it. He nods to his brother apologetically. “Give me my overcoat and I’ll use it as cover. I’m taking him home.”

Marcus gives him a pointed look and Harvey glares back.

“I am _not_ sleeping with him in his inebriated state, Marcus. I’m taking him to _sleep_.”

The younger Specter snorts. “Sleep, right. How do you think Dillan was conceived?”

“Seeing as I don’t make it a habit to think of your naked wife, I assume it was through loving passionate intercourse during your honeymoon but that would mean I didn’t know how to count. So, no, I’d rather not know.” He rolls his eyes and tries to help Mike up when a waiter arrives with their coats. “But, thank you,” he tells Marcus sincerely, “I wasn’t—”

“—thinking,” his brother ends it for him. Marcus pats him on the shoulder, head shaking. “I know you weren’t thinking with your top brain, Harvey, but some other part of you was thinking. Boy, you’ve got it bad if you aren’t tapping.” He points with his lips to Mike, “The kid, and I mean kid, Harvey, he’s practically a baby, is hanging all over you like a lovesick puppy. And you’re looking at him like a lovesick puppy back. I’ve never seen you this bad before.”

Harvey does what any respectable big brother would do, lawyer or not. He flips Marcus the birds before taking Mike home. As it turns out, Mike owns another set of panties. The purple satin cloth haunts Harvey as he chases his orgasm that night.

***

Mike is gone when Harvey wakes up the next morning. He tries not to think about the empty feeling he felt when he saw the couch devoid of any Mike-shaped lump underneath his comforter.

***

Everything goes to hell during at the deposition.

The bastard Dennis managed to scrounge up Joanna’s sealed juvie records for petty theft. Their star witness, the key to their trial, the woman who would have won them the case, flies out of their office building and Mike fails to catch her. Pissed off and feelings still clogged up from this morning, Harvey says a lot of harsh words to Mike in his office before sending the kid away.

“Those were sealed records, Harvey,” Donna tells him but he doesn’t listen. She doesn’t interrupt him against for the rest of the day but she does knock on his door before she leaves that evening.

“What?” he barks without bothering to look at her. He can picture her condescending know-it-all face mocking him from memory alone.

“I think you better go check on your puppy.”

“Why?” He rubs his hand over his temple. “He doesn’t need coddling. Some constructive criticism will toughen the kid up. It’ll be good for him.”

“Harvey,” Donna’s voice is chastising enough, “It would if you said anything constructive. But your rattled his ear off because _you_ were having a bad day. No, don’t argue because you _were_. Why did you think I screened all your call all day? You would have gone into a screaming match and lost a client if I let some of those calls through and you know it. What is this really about?”

“It’s nothing,” he lies and Donna lets him but not without putting in the last word.

“You might want to go check the pen if you still have an associate in the morning. You were pretty harsh.”

He contemplates on her words for a good twenty minutes before he’s scrambling onto the elevator and going down to the bullpen. He sees Mike’s badge on the rookie’s miraculously clean table. It’s too clean like the kid spent the rest of the day cleaning it from— _everything_ , almost.

A stack of case folder—his _pro bono_ work—is arranged in a neat pile by the keyboard with notes on how to go about the cases from research needed to possible arguments. It’s more than good. It’s better than any associate’s produced from the pen since it was Louis and him going head-to-tail.

“Shit,” he curses, running like a madman for the elevator. He catches Mike at the lobby. “So you’re gonna quit?” his mouth yells the first thing in his brain before he can stop it. It sounds rough even to his own ears but it’s already been said.

Mike’s steps falter but he doesn’t turn around. “It’s either that or have Louis fire me.”

“What are you talking about?” It comes out breathy from his sprint but he falls two steps behind Mike. He nudges Mike on the shoulder to get the kid to turn.

“My first day,” Mike says, turning around and running his hands over his hair in a nervous gesture. Louis fired Gary Lipsky for screwing up on a case. He said that if I did the same thing, I’d be gone just as fast.” He screws up his eyes and balls up his hands into fist, standing rigidly in the middle of the empty lobby. It’s way past normal working hours.

“What the hell happened to your face?” Harvey’s anger boils when he sees the discoloration around Mike’s eyes but the kid waves him off.

“It was a prank.”

“A prank?” Harvey growls, stepping closer. “Didn’t I tell you that pranks aren’t supposed to hurt? Who did this?” He tenderly touches the side of Mike’s face, thumb skimming over the black eye.

Mike winces and turns his face away. “I’m sorry.” He says, pulling away. “I tried, okay? But there’s no way. She said she won’t testify. She won’t go in front of that CEO again, no matter what the cost. It’s over, Harvey. I lost my very first case. You were right. I wasn’t what you were looking for. I don’t deserve to be here.”

The words— _his own words_ —sting and guilt coils inside his gut because he drilled that into Mike’s head. Mike who has done far more in a week than the entire bullpen combined, combed through more documents than Harvey’s done in his career, and still managed to juggle the five pro bono cases before he left when most people would have left it hanging. Mike did not deserve that kind of pity.  

“You know what?” Harvey lets out a heavy sigh.  “Donna thought there was something in you and I was just starting to believe her but if you want to quit, go ahead. This isn’t because of some Louis or some prank. It’s about _you_. You don’t think you can make it big in this world because you’re too afraid to try. But guess what, maybe your better than you think you are because I don’t grovel and beg for just anyone to stay.” He watches Mike’s face go through a million emotions before settling on disbelief. “

“You think about that,” he says, pushing the employee badge into Mike’s chest. “I’ll know in the morning if I still have an associate.” He spins around and stomps all the way to the junior partner’s floor because there a conversation that needs to be done.

He finds Louis in the men’s washroom, washing his hands.

“Hey, I get the you’re upset that I was promoted before you, but if you ever threaten to fire one of my guys again, I am going to kiss your ass.” He looks Louis dead in the eye through the large mirror. He’s furious, more than furious, because he just discovered that he liked Mike and now he is on the verge of losing him. It isn’t even his fault this time!

Louis, like the cock-sucker (no the good kind), that he is, feigns disbelief. “Hmm, what are you talking about?”

Harvey purses his lips. “Don’t play dumb with me, all right? You fired Gary Lipsky in front of Mike Ross.” He glowers when Louis has the audacity to smirk. If it isn’t for the ethical codes of conduct and the fact that a senior partner hitting a junior partner will be ground for review, he would have punched the nosy bastard in the face. “What’s so funny?”

“Gary Lipsky works in the mail room,” Louis informs him smugly. He turns around and leans his hip against the marble counter, folding his arms across his chest. “I didn’t fire anyone. That’s how I let the new associates know what’s expected of them.”

 “You plant a fake employee to manipulate the associate.” It finally clicks in Harvey’s brain. That’s it! A fake employee! There is no other way that Mike, and his research skills, would have not been able to find out about Joanna’s juvenile records but he opposing council did! Someone is paying Joanna off and if he can prove that it links to McGegor in anyway then their case is as good as finished!

He knows what he has to do. He exits the men’s room abruptly and goes straight to Joanna’s apartment to find out the truth.

***

Harvey’s tries to hide his glee when Mike enters his office the following morning. “Nice suit,” he says because _well, damn_ it’s one of Renee’s that hug Mike’s body in all the right places, making him thankfully for once that he’s sitting behind a desk instead of standing up. If only the illusion wasn’t broken by Mike’s still-swollen black eye but at least it’s something.

“Thank you,” Mike pats down his lapels and blushes. “You said I had to start owing up to what I want myself to be. I think… I want to try and be a little bit more confident about myself. So here I am. How do I look?”

“Like a lawyer,” Harvey replies confidently.

Mike blushes again and walks up to Harvey’s window with an excellent view of Manhattan. “You know, I’ve only ever had that one person who believed in me, you know? Like believed in _me_ , believed in me. Push me into someone I didn’t want to be… Growing up, everyone was too scared to say anything and just _put up with my crap_. You didn’t.”

Harvey admires the way Mike’s profile looks. It’s pretty but Mike’s frontal face is prettier.

As if on cue, Mike turns to face him, sitting on the side of his desk. “I’ve only had one person tell me what I really need to hear. Maybe, it’s time I started trusting somebody else.”

It gives Harvey the perfect opportunity to pull out what he asked his PI to dig up last night. He hands Mike the folder of evidence about wire transfers and under the table deals, and Mike’s face light’s up like it’s Christmas morning when he opens it.

“Merry Christmas,” Harvey unconsciously voices out his thoughts but Mike doesn’t seem to mind. “You know what to do.”

Mike gives him a grin that he hasn’t seen since Mike found the fake redacted file buried in the paperwork. It’s full of confidence and joy that it melts Harvey’s heart maybe a little. Harvey cannot deny the swell of pride, and the jerk of his cock, when Mike does a half-grin half-smirk combination with just the side of his pretty pink lips.

“Press until it hurts.”

***  
They demolish Delvin McGregor in the courtroom, have the CEO agree to settle out of court, and arrange for a hefty sum _and_ college funds for their client. Nancy, their client, is ecstatic and hugs are given all around.

“Why did you go to Joanna’s house?” Mike asks, full of unbridle confidence and running on endorphins from their recent win. He’s wearing a goofy grin on his face that Harvey thinks should be there permanently instead of the shy smiles he wears in the office. It also makes him want to kiss the boy stupid but the middle of the court house is not an appropriate place for such decorum.

“Because I figured it out,” he replies cryptically.

Mike rolls his eyes but his grin widens. “I object. I think you did it because you care.”

That hits it right on the nail and Harvey’s steps falter. Thankfully Mike doesn’t see it. Harvey fakes a cough and shoves his hands into his pocket, faking relaxation. “I did it because it’s my job.” He beams internally for saying that with a straight face.

Mike goes in front of him and stops, arms crossed smugly in front of his chest. “So you do admit it,” he teases with a smile, “You care about me! I saw you smile when I showed up for work this morning!”

Harvey stops in his tracks. Shit, shit, shit, shit, goes through his mind like a freight train. He can’t. He just can’t. He can’t tell Mike that he’s developed _feelings_ for him after just a week of working together. He’ll get the wrong idea. Hell, Harvey would get the wrong idea if his boss suddenly confesses right to feeing after nearly begging him to stay. There’s an obvious clash of interest.

“I didn’t smile,” he argues. “I was thinking of a funny joke. Look, we can start this tomorrow.” He forces his legs to continue walking in the general direction of the door. Tomorrow, he might tell Mike tomorrow or he might not. The point is it isn’t the right time to get emotionally involved with a new associate.

Mike takes the brush off in stride. “Does this mean we’re officially partners now?”

 _Not in the way I want_ , Harvey wants to say. “I wouldn’t move your things to Wayne Manor yet.” He nearly bites of his own tongue because _stupid, stupid, stupid_ , he just revealed how much of a geek he actually was deep down inside. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_.

“So now you’re Batman?”

Harvey chokes. “Closer to him than Clemenza.” A jolt goes up his arm when Mike accidentally brushes against him because some asshole refused to move.

“Oh yeah, Kilmer,” Mike counter offers, close enough that his breath brushes Harvey’s ear.

“Clooney.”

“Keaton.” They say at the same time. He doesn’t know whether or not he _likes_ the fact that Mike can keep up with his obscure references. Clearly, they think alike and go through the doors at the exact same time, shoulders pressed together. This close, Mike smells like aftershave, cologne, and sweat, and does wonders for Harvey’s senses. Mike smells like heaven on Christmas morning.

‘Shit’ is the last word he thinks about when they slide into the town car. He’s thirty-six and he’s just made youngest senior partner in the history of the firm. He should be bouncing on his feet celebrating at the glory which is his life, and not sneaking sideward glances at his new associate pretending that he isn’t hopelessly smitten.

**Author's Note:**

> It's a canon-divergent world but not really AU. I tried to add a bit of a backstory in case I ever want to write in this 'verse again. I think a companion piece in Mike's perspective to cover more about the 'pranks' the associates played on him. I realized that we don't get to see much of Harvey's emotions in season 1, and I've been re-watching the episode during the Holy Week break so I kept it in Harvey's perspective because I wanted it the other way around. Pining!Harvey is hard to find! I'll let you decide who I'm referring to with the title *winkwink*. 
> 
> Anyway, if you liked or enjoyed this fic, you should know what to do. **Comment/Kudos/Bookmarks** are always appreciated by this author. :) 
> 
> If you have a prompt or an idea, you can [INSPIRE ME](http://arh581958.tumblr.com/submit) on tumblr. Or [TALK TO ME](http://arh581958.tumblr.com/ask), I don't bite, pinky promise!


End file.
